


tiefs

by stuff_and_nonsense



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Basically just a conversation, Fantasy Racism, Ficlet, Gen, episode 54
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-25
Updated: 2019-03-25
Packaged: 2019-12-07 04:20:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18229820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stuff_and_nonsense/pseuds/stuff_and_nonsense
Summary: Caleb & Jester chat about his disguise as her twin.





	tiefs

**Author's Note:**

> The part in episode 54 where Dairon talks about Caleb being a tiefling stuck with me. ("I haven’t seen any strange creatures of the infernal- eh, other than you, and your background.") I thought it was interesting that she directed this at only him and not Jester, and that his response was to tell her that it's a "sore spot" for him (giving even his fake identity self-loathing issues...). I'm sure a lot of this just comes from the players forgetting he's disguised, but this fic popped out anyway. It's mostly just chewing on that moment via Jester and Caleb talking, but could be read as a little bit shippy too.

Back at the Four Corners that evening, they have a quick dinner before retiring to an early rest in the person-stables. Caleb finds Jester as they settle in to eat, hoping for a conversation. There’re a lot of questions he could ask, and it’s a little overwhelming to think about, everything their group has left hanging without discussion. He picks one of the more recent options, something that’s been nagging at him from earlier today. 

“When we were speaking to Dairon earlier,” he begins, “and she mentioned, ehm, all of this…” He gestures at his illusory tiefling horns. “Was that strange for you? You looked a little befuddled.”

“Oh, well, a little?” Jester says. “It’s kind of funny that she said that to you and not me, you know?”

“Ah, ja,” says Caleb. “Do people ever, eh, give you trouble? Over…” He circles his finger around the loop of one horn. He hasn’t seen it, in their travels – people are sometimes confused or annoyed by Jester, but no one’s been openly hostile about her race. And it’s never seemed to be a ‘sore spot’, as he’d put it. But then, he hasn’t seen her much away from their large group, or asked her about her feelings on the matter.

It had been something of a surprise for him at first, that she and Mollymauk had both been so comfortable as themselves. His northern Empire upbringing, he supposed. He hadn’t so much as seen a tiefling until he’d come to Rexxentraum, and the few he’d spotted there had been stiff and closed-off, pretending not to notice as people crossed the street to avoid them. And no one he’d met had had much good to say about them. Under pressure from Dairon, his instincts had gone back to that, imagined the shame and discomfort he’d have felt growing up blue and horned in the capital.

There’s a part of him, too, that had recalled those early memories when he’d first met the rest of the Nein. Had looked at Jester and Mollymauk and Fjord and thought it was appropriate, a piece of shit like him traveling with a group of monsters. Only for a moment – his time with Nott had disabused him of most of those notions – but still there. He’s deeply ashamed to think about it now; they’re all much better than he could ever be.

 

Jester thinks about it, as Caleb watches her with that same worried expression he always has. “Well, not really?” she says. “I mean, people look at me a lot. But that could just be because I’m really cool and pretty, you know?” She tilts her head back dramatically. “People were mean to Molly sometimes, but not to me as much. I just got stared at sometimes.”

It had been kind of weird with Molly actually, in the same way it was weird this morning when Dairon had noticed Caleb and not her. It was probably because of a lot of things - Molly was taller, and a boy, and had bigger horns and less human-looking eyes than she did - but people were usually a lot more scared of him than they were of Jester. 

She doesn’t want people to be scared of her, of course, except when she’s being a super badass pirate or something and trying to be scary. But it was just strange, to meet Molly and realize she got treated so differently than he did, to get that same kind of fear only when she walked around with him. People weren’t scared of her mother either, but they’d been mean to her in other ways when she was younger, Jester was pretty sure. But Jester looks pretty different from her too.

“Do you like it better here than the Empire?” Caleb asks. “The way people look at you?”

“It’s kind of the same?” Jester says. “I don’t think anybody dislikes tieflings here, but I haven’t seen any of us around either. So I guess I get stared at about the same amount.”

“Does it help at all if I look like you?” Caleb asks. “So we, er, divide up the weird looks?’

Honestly, it doesn’t really. She likes it – tiefling Caleb is very handsome and it's pretty cool to have a twin - but being looked at isn't something that bothers her. She thinks Caleb is maybe projecting a little. And anyway, they get stared at more when they match.

“I mean, it's not really something I need help with,” she says. “I don't mind looking different, you know? It is fun to have a twin though,” she adds. “We're really hot together, even though you should be more goth too.”

He scrunches up his face. She’ll have to draw that later, grouchy Caleb with horns. “Anyway, it's nice when you and Beau look like me, but it's also not really the same, I guess? When Molly was here–“

They both flinch a little, but it’s not enough to stop the conversation. She misses him a lot, especially thinking about this, but they’ve talked about his dick enough by now that’s no longer the end of everyone’s good mood when he comes up.

“It was cool to have another tiefling around, you know?” Jester continues. “Not because of how people treated us, or because we got stared at, but just- I'd only really met my momma before. So it was nice to see - oh, he also swishes his tail around when he's nervous, or here are some cool ways to decorate your horns. And to have someone else who speaks infernal, things like that.”

“Ja, that makes sense,” says Caleb.

Jester leans in close. “Speaking of Molly though, is your dick purple too?”

Caleb walks off. Jester decides that probably means yes.


End file.
